10 minutes a day of mindfulness

5–10 minutes can make you more self-aware, thus leading to awareness of your environment. Some meditation and awareness practices I’ve tried have made me happier, healthier, and more enjoyable in personal interactions. Here is a three point list.

1. Wheel of awareness

Dan Siegel, PhD is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute and has created great audio guides for awareness practice.

The Wheel of Awareness is the basis for a reflective practice. This practice helps us direct our attention and improve our ability to focus on the individual aspects of our internal and external worlds. These are key components of a healthy mind.

Here is an image of “The Wheel of Awareness.” The hub represents the experience of awareness itself — knowing — while the rim contains all the points of anything we can become aware of, that which is known to us. We can send a spoke out to the rim to focus our attention on one point or another on the rim. In this way, the wheel of awareness becomes a visual metaphor for the integration of consciousness as we differentiate rim-elements and hub-awareness from each other and link them with our focus of attention.

You can find the full description here and download several types of the audio guides (short and expanded) here.

2. “Just One Thing” — simple practices

The brain is bad at learning from good experiences, but good at learning from bad ones. Noticing positive aspects in simple everyday things and actions will, in time, help you improve your attitude to daily life.

Created by Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a psychologist and New York Times best-selling author.

For example, one practice asks you to take a few minutes each day to notice little things you appreciate or feel grateful for, like the smell of an orange, or the smile of a friend. This may not sound like much, but research has shown that this practice will lift your mood, protect you against stress, and even strengthen your immune system.

You can find them here

3. Simple guides with great explanations

I tried headspace app just for fun, but soon it became a great guide for different types of meditations and awareness techniques. In addition, they have amazing and cute short videos with explanations on how it works in simple language. The Headspace team definitely did a great job! So far my results are:

Make time for self-care, no matter how busy you are.